The 2012 Davitt Awards will be announced tonight at a dinner in Melbourne. The Davitts are a national crime writing award sponsored by Sisters in Crime Australia. They are awarded each year for the best crime books by Australian women. The categories are best Adult Fiction, Children’s/YA, True Crime, Debut and Reader’s Choice.
“Sisters in Crime Australia named the award The Davitt in honour of Ellen Davitt (1812-1879) who wrote Australia’s first mystery novel, Force and Fraud in 1865. Her achievement is extraordinary when it is considered that Wilke’s Collins’ The Woman in White, generally regarded as the first full-length mystery novel, was published only in 1860. Force and Fraud was serialised in the Australian Journal, starting with its very first issue. It begins with a murder and ends with its solution, with red herrings, blackmail, and a dramatic court scene in between.” (From the Sisters in Crime website.)
The short- and long-listed books are given below, along with links to AWW reviews. What is noticeable is how few of the long-listed books have been reviewed for the challenge. Notable exceptions are when the book is cross-genre, especially with Speculative Fiction. One reason for this may be that these are 2011 titles, rather than new releases. Current AWW crime reviews may be of books that qualify for next year’s awards. However this could also indicate that Australian women’s crime writing is not as well known in Australia as, for example, romance, or at least not among challenge participants.
How many of the following books have you read?
(If your AWW review of one of the following has been overlooked, or if you reviewed one or more of these books in previous years, please mention your review in the comments below.)
Adult Crime Fiction
Shortlist
- Jaye Ford, Beyond Fear (Bantam/Random) Kevin Rennie,
- Sulari Gentill, Decline in Prophets (Pantera Press) Caroline Sully
- Carolyn Morwood, Death and the Spanish Lady (Pulp Fiction)Â Crime Pieces, Naturally Dotty
- Jennifer Rowe, Love Honour & O’Brien (Allen & Unwin)
- Kim Westwood, The Courier’s New Bicycle (Harper Voyager), Mark Webb, David Golding, Annabel Smith, Jason Nahrung, Bookonaut
- Helene Young, Shattered Sky (Hachette Australia), Bookdout, 1girl2manybooks,
Longlist
- Sydney Bauer, The 3rd Victim (PanMacmillan)
- A.A. Bell, Hindsight (HarperCollins)
- Claire Corbett, When We Have Wings (Allen & Unwin)Â Tsana, CAR Torres V, Annabel Smith, Angela @ Literary Minded, Mark Webb, Ann-Marie Sjoberg, Bookonaut
- Sandy Curtis, Fatal Flaw (Clan Destine Press)
- Miranda Darling, The Siren’s Sting (Allen & Unwin)
- Virginia Duigan, The Precipice (Random House), Librarians Adrift, Bernadette,
- Y A Erskine, The Brotherhood (Bantam/Random House): 1girl2manybooks, Brenda, Crime Pieces, Bookdout, Oanh,
- Helen Fitzgerald, The Donor (Allen & Unwin)
- Carol Gibson, Click Click, You’re Dead (Zeus Publications)
- H.M. Goltz, Death by Sugar (Atlas Productions Publishing Company)
- Kerry Greenwood (interviewed by Tara Moss), Cooking the Books (Allen & Unwin) Tenna Miller,
- Judy Johnson, The Secret Fate of Mary Watson (HarperCollins)
- Sylvia Johnson, Watch Out for Me (Allen & Unwin), Helen McKenna, Bernadette,
- Adriana Koulias, The Sixth Key (Random House)
- Phyllis King, ed., Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut (Clan Destine Press) [Readers Choice vote by SinC members only] Narelle Harris
- Carolyn Morwood, Death and the Spanish Lady (Pulp Fiction)Â Crime Pieces, Naturally Dotty,
- Nicole Watson, The Boundary (University of Queensland Press) Bookdout,
- Tracey O’Hara, Death’s Sweet Embrace (Harper Voyager)
Young Adult/Children’s
Shortlist
- Ursula Dubosarsky, The Golden Day (Allen & Unwin) Suburban Sonnet,
- Nansi Kunze, Dangerously Placed (Random House)
- Meg McKinlay, Surface Tension (Walker Books) Michelle
Longlist
- J.C Burke, Pig Boy (Random House)
- Susan Green, The Truth about Verity Sparks (Walker Books)
- Jacqueline Harvey, Alice-Miranda at Sea (Random House)
- H J Harper, Star League series Book 1: Lights, Camera, Action Hero!; Book 2: Curse of the Werewolf; Book 3: Raising the Dead; Book 4: The Ninja Code (Random House)
- Karen Healey, The Shattering (Allen & Unwin)
- Gabrielle Lord, Conspiracy 365 (Scholastic Australia)
- Sophie Masson, The Understudy’s Revenge (Scholastic Australia)
- Tara Moss, The Spider Goddess (PanMacmillan Australia), Phillip A Ellis, Duke,
- Belinda Murrell, The Ivory Rose (Random House)
- Joanne Van Os, The Secret of the Lonely Isles (Random House)
- Lili Wilkinson, A Pocketful of Eyes (Allen & Unwin)
True Crime Â
Shortlist
- Wendy Lewis, The Australian Book of Family Murders (Pier 9/Murdoch Books)
- Liz Porter, Cold Case Files: Past crimes solved by new forensic science (PanMacmillan)
Longlist
- Carol Baxter, Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady: The true story of bushrangers Frederick Ward and Mary Ann Bugg (Allen & Unwin)
- Jo Chandler and Christine Nixon, Fair Cop: Christine Nixon (Melbourne University Press)
- Rachael Jane Chin, Nice Girl: Whatever Happened To Baby Tegan Lane? (Simon & Schuster)
- Helen Cummings, Blood Vows: a haunting memoir of marriage and murder (The Five Mile Press)
- Nichola Garvey, Beating the Odds (Harper Collins)
- Fiona Harari, A Tragedy in Two Acts: Marcus Einfeld and Teresa Brennan (Victory Books)
- Vikki Petraitis, The Frankston Serial Killer (Clan Destine Press)
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